


Break Bread

by nekojita



Series: Dragon!Andrew [10]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Dragon!Andrew, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Neil and Katelyn bonding, it's not easy loving a Minyard, more baking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-14 18:57:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15395286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nekojita/pseuds/nekojita
Summary: Neil and Andrew are still recovering from Riko's repeated attempts to regain his wayward 'fiance', which isn't easy when Andrew has an overprotective dragon dwelling inside of him. Off on his own to clear his head, Neil finds an unexpected companion of sorts to commiserate with - Katelyn.





	Break Bread

**Author's Note:**

> Hmm, yeah, just a little something to shake off the writing malaise while I work on the BB fic and the next chapter of RP. I hope you enjoy it, for some reason I felt it was time to give Neil and Katelyn a little attention....
> 
> That and I wanted to write more dragon!Andrew after this amazing artwork:  
> http://viridianjane.tumblr.com/post/175760203329/nekojitachan
> 
> *******

*******

“No, he’s not going,” Andrew said as he stared down Kevin with his arms folded over his chest.

“But he’s more useful than Matt!” Kevin declared despite the fact that Matt stood a few feet away with a bemused expression on his face. “He’s more powerful and good at blending in.”

“Neil’s not leaving the castle,” Andrew said as a golden glow overcame his hazel eyes. “Keep it up and you won’t be leaving, either, as you’ll be a charred pile of ash.”

“You’re being unduly paranoid, you-“ Kevin threw up his gloved hands in a gesture of submission when the glow grew stronger. “We’ll talk about this some more when I return!”

“No, we won’t,” Andrew promised as he continued to stare down the earth mage while the press of his magic filled the hallway.

Meanwhile, Neil sighed and shook his head before he looked up at a still bemused Matt. “Perhaps the two of you could take Jean along?” he offered. “If you need help, that is.” Since Allison had gone off with Dan and Renee on a mission which Wymack had felt required a bit of ‘diplomatic polish’.

Matt seemed to think about that for a moment and grinned. “That’s not a bad idea. At the least, it’s someone else around to help take the brunt of Kevin’s _wonderful_ personality.”

“Hey, I heard that,” Kevin muttered as he finally glanced away from Andrew, which put an end to their staring contest. “And Jean? Hmm….” He appeared thoughtful as he gazed down the hallway then stalked off with clear intent.

“Well there we go.” Matt grinned at Neil and gave him a wave as he walked away, too. “Try to stay out of trouble while we’re gone, okay?”

“No promises,” Neil told his… his _friend_ (that was a bit odd, thinking of Matt and the other Foxhole Court knights like that), then sighed when a slightly frowning Andrew stood in front of him. “Yes?”

“Jean? Really?”

“It gets him out of the castle for a little while which means no singed tapestries or hallways for a few days at least,” Neil explained. “And it got Kevin to go away, didn’t it?” It put an end to one fight and prevented a few more, which was a good thing in Neil’s opinion.

Things were tense enough as it were without Kevin being his usual stubborn, ‘I know what’s best’ self.

Andrew seemed to consider that before he tugged Neil to walk beside him as they headed to Betsy’s lab. “You think he’ll go along with those two morons?”

If it had been a week or so ago, before Riko had sent two Evermore knights to ‘retrieve’ Neil while Andrew was cursed with a youth spell, then the answer would be ‘no’. However, the two knights had been given orders to not only drag Neil back to Evermore but to also kill Andrew while he was in a ‘vulnerable’ form and to ‘take care’ of Jean, who’d been declared a traitor Evermore.

The two knights had failed in all regards, and in learning that the Moriyamas had declared him a traitor, had marked him for death, Jean had regained a sense of freedom. Neil knew better than anyone how having a powerful royal family after you wasn’t to be taken lightly, that Jean’s life wouldn’t be easy… but Jean was better off as a ‘marked man’ than a Moriyama vassal.

He also thought that Jean would relish a chance to leave the Foxhole Court for a short while, especially in the company of two skilled knights (Kevin’s opinion of Matt otherwise), and to prove his worth to Wymack as something other than an enforced guest desperate for sanctuary.

“I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t go with them,” Neil admitted.

He was also a bit envious of the fire mage, considering that it was obvious that Andrew didn’t intend to allow _him_ out of the castle until Betsy perfected the ‘poison’ detection spell and the two of them managed to find a priest to officiate their small wedding.

Neil understood that they needed to put an end to Riko’s pathetic claim on him (and his magic), to take away the reason why his father wanted him returned to the Moriyamas… but he detested being all but locked up for the foreseeable future. At least while in the old fortress up on the mountain, he could roam outside most of the time, made safe by Andrew in his dragon form and the remoteness of the old building (and his own aether magic).

Something in what he was thinking and feeling must have come through in his voice or expression, because the thoughtful look on Andrew’s handsome face was replaced by the blankness which Neil hated. “You want to go Kevin and Boyd.”

“Not… not necessarily with them,” Neil tried to explain. “I mean, Matt was right about having someone there to help deal with Kevin. But it would be nice to go out and do something, don’t you think?” he asked his quiet husband.

Andrew gazed at him for several seconds before he clicked his tongue. “And get dosed again, perhaps this time with something worse than an aphrodisiac or youth potion? Or maybe have another fun family reunion with your father, hmm?”

Neil winced at the amount of sarcasm in Andrew’s deep voice. “We know enough to be careful about what we eat and drink when outside, and what’s to say that nothing will happen here, huh? We can’t hide forever.” His father and Riko were determined to get their hands on him one way or another.

“We’re not going to, we have a plan and we’re sticking to it. So don’t do anything stupid until we’re ready to act upon it,” Andrew told – no, _ordered_ him.

“It’s not _stupid_ to want to pull our weight,” Neil snapped. “And I’m not a child, I’ve someone managed to survive without you for how many years!”

“Which is why you have that ridiculous tattoo on your cheek and a bastard prince who seems to think you’re overdue for a wedding to make you a Moriyama,” Andrew shot back as the gold flared in his eyes once more, a sure sign that he and the dragon were displeased just then. “ _Prince Nathaniel_.”

Neil went still as soon as Andrew referred to the damn raven tattoo, but when he brought up _that_ name? He managed to curb the ball of aether he flung into the air between them enough that it was _mostly_ light and noise, that it didn’t cause _too_ _much_ damage, that it startled Andrew back enough and gave him a chance to take off running.

Running away from Andrew, away from his husband, away from the sound of his name (the only one he acknowledged) being called out. He ran past a startled Abby and nearly into Erik, ignored Nicky who tried to grab onto his arm (and almost got a blast of potent aether for doing that), and spooked a poor guy carrying a large load of what looked to be clean laundry into dropping it to the floor.

He didn’t stop until he reached the one library in the far west wing; despite loving to read (loving to be read to), Andrew didn’t care for libraries for some reason and relied on Neil or someone else to fetch books for him. Neil figured he would be left alone in quiet, book-filled room until he calmed down.

There were a couple of people in the room, various vassals of Wymack who took advantage of their lord’s generous policy of making knowledge available to those sworn to him. Mindful of (in part) what had sparked the fight with Andrew, Neil took the time to ensure that those people were indeed tied to Palmetto in some way and not his father or Riko, but he didn’t recognize them or find them suspicious.

Still, he found a table in the one far corner which left his back protected and him a view of most of the room, and sat down with a couple of books on protection spells.  It was difficult to concentrate with Andrew’s barbed words ringing in his head and his emotions so agitated, but he did his best to not think of such things, to put the day’s events out of mind.

He’d just found a spell interesting enough to make him wish he’d brought along a notebook and pen to write it down when he noticed someone walking toward him, someone familiar; Katelyn. She gave him a shy smile as she approached, her dark brown hair pulled back in a neat braid and dressed in a pretty gown of pale gold and white. “Hi,” she said in a quiet voice. “Uhm… do you mind if I sit down?” she asked as she motioned to the table.

“No?” Neil blinked at how broken that had come out and returned the shy smile. “No.”

“Thank you.” She sat down and glanced at the books spread out in front of him. “Oh, wards? That’s interesting, I can cast simple ones for the most part but I only really have one specialty. Do you… do you want to see it?” she asked with a hint of blush on her round cheeks.

Willing to be distracted, Neil marked the page he’d been reading with a scrap of paper from the pouch on his belt and nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

“Okay.” Katelyn’s brow furrowed for a couple of seconds and then the faint background noises around them faded away until they were almost none-existent. “There we go,” she said with evident pride as she sat up in the chair.

That was…. “A sound ward?” Neil guessed as he glanced around; he’d heard that some air mages could cast them, had been warned about them by his mother since it meant people could sneak up on him if he was distracted.

“Yes!” Katelyn clapped her hands together and grinned. “Have you come across one before?”

“No, I’ve just had them described to me,” he admitted. “They’re supposed to be difficult to do.” He eyed her with fresh appraisal since he hadn’t thought her to be that powerful.

Katelyn seemed to guess what he was thinking as her grin widened. “All I know is that not long after my magic developed, there was this boy in my class who would follow me and my best friend around everywhere we went – every indication was that he’d be a powerful earth mage and his parents were wealthy, so everyone let him do whatever he wanted. All I wanted was him to leave me and Alisa alone, to have a bit of privacy, so….” She gestured to the air around them. “I guess it’s more a necessity thing.”

Neil supposed that it said a lot about Katelyn’s personality that her magic manifested in a way to allow her that privacy instead of an attack on the young boy. “It must have frustrated him when it happened.”

“Yes, but what could he do? Say that he couldn’t eavesdrop on us anymore and I should stop? Couldn’t get close enough to bother us and make a fuss?” Katelyn’s pretty features twisted with disgust. “Eventually he tried a spell that everyone warned was too advanced for him and he burned out his talent, and I can’t help but feel it was a good thing in the end.” She was quiet for moment. “I think that he’d have turned into another mage like the one who cursed Andrew if he’d gone unchecked, remembering how he tried to break my ward, how he seemed to think that he could do whatever he wanted because he had money and power.”

Mention of Andrew and his curse made Neil frown as he began to stack the books into a neat pile just to have something to do. “It often comes down to money and power in the end.” It was what made the Moriyamas believe they could own someone, could ruin Neil’s life because of a stupid promise and bloodline and demon magic. It had allowed Andrew to be used and abused and cursed.

Andrew….

“That’s why I was happy to see Aaron work so hard to break the curse on his brother,” Katelyn admitted. “To stand up to that mage in some way.” She grasped the end of her braid, which had slipped over her right shoulder, and began to play with it between her fingers. “What drew me to him in part.” Then she laughed a little, the sound self-conscious. “I’m babbling, aren’t I? It’s just… we’ve barely talked to each other and I finally get a chance to do that and you look… you look like you need a distraction right now.”

She was right about all of that, Neil supposed; because of Andrew almost always being with him and not liking the young woman for some reason (no, that was a lie – he disliked her because Aaron liked her, which made no sense), Neil had barely said more than ten words to her. He also needed to stop thinking so much about his fight with his husband.

“I like learning more about you,” he admitted. “This is the first chance I’ve had for that.” He propped his chin on his right hand and motioned in her direction. “Ah… why are you here? Were you looking for a book?”

“Sort of.” Katelyn gave a slight shrug. “Aaron’s upset because of Andrew again and we got into a fight.” She gave Neil a rueful smile at their shared circumstances. “Uhm… he was ranting about the two of you and I may have told him to stop being a child and stomped away. It’s funny that we both ended up here, no?”

Not really, when it was a quiet place far enough away from where the brothers usually hung out. “Let me guess, Andrew’s being a stubborn asshole and I’m the cause of all evil in the world. Everything would be much better if I went away and took the Moriyamas and my father along with me.” He snorted when Katelyn had the grace to wince.

“Basically,” she admitted. “Even Nicky’s upset with him for thinking like that. I know he’s just worried about Andrew, Nicky and me being hurt, but I’ve already dealt with one entitled asshole in my life.” She crossed her arms over her chest as her expression grew resolved. “There’s no guarantee that another one won’t try something, and if he thinks I’m just going to sit around and do nothing with the rest of my life? He’s wrong. Abby’s offered to teach me how to heal, too, since I’ve got some talent in diagnosing illnesses in the body.”

“Good for you,” Neil said, and he meant it; he didn’t believe that Aaron would do well with someone who wasn’t stubborn and intelligent and driven toward something, which certainly seemed to be Katelyn.

She gazed at him for several seconds as if making sure he meant what he’d said before she smiled. “Thank you. So, what about you and Andrew?” She risked reaching over the table to give his left hand a sympathetic pat when he groaned. “From what I saw, he’s not happy with himself right now. That and there’s a few more singed tapestries.”

“Great.” Wymack would probably blame Neil for those, just what he needed. What surprised him the most, though, was that Andrew (or more exactly, the dragon) hadn’t tracked him down yet.

He supposed that his husband was trying to give him some room after the argument, which just made him feel even guiltier. “I understand why he’s being so protective after everything that’s happened, after the drug and the curse, it’s just… it was so much simpler when it was just the two of us up on the mountain,” Neil said as he rubbed his eyes. “Simpler and quieter.” Neil would get angry at Andrew and throw a ball of aether at his lover, who was safe in his dragon form, and then make a bunch of pies as an apology, the two of them talking to each other in the kitchen while Neil baked.

Hmm… pies….

“Look, I may have my problems with Andrew because of how he won’t talk to me and that he’s fighting with Aaron because of me, but I understand that he and Aaron try to look out for each other.” Katelyn frowned as she tugged on her braid, her gaze distant as if she was thinking about something. “Aaron’s only talked about things with his mother a little, and Nicky’s made a comment or two about the past, enough for me to know there’s some sort of complex set of obligations going on there.” She looked at Neil as if hoping for more of an explanation.

He shook his head. “I don’t really know much more than you, sad to say.” At least, anything he felt comfortable sharing, knowing how Andrew was about confidences. “But yes, Andrew feels he needs to look after Aaron and Nicky. It’s that protective nature of his which is part of why he and the dragon get along so well.” He winced a little at that. “Why he’s being a bit of an overprotective asshole right now. He means well.” Andrew did, and having the dragon ‘inside’ didn’t help things.

“Yeah, I remind myself of that all the time, which is why I haven’t pulled the air out of his lungs when he sits there and ignores me during dinner,” Katelyn gritted out. “Sooner or later he’s going to realize that I’m not going away, hopefully sooner because it’s really, really tempting, the whole lung thing.”

Neil thought he was beginning to like the young woman. “Might not be good to do that to someone who has a dragon inside of him,” he cautioned.

“I know, it’s part of the reason why I haven’t done it, that and Aaron would never shut up about it.” She rolled her eyes while Neil laughed. “As is, he’s probably going to whine for a few weeks about you ‘corrupting’ someone else.” She leaned forward as if to share a secret, never mind that her air ward prevented anyone from overhearing them. “He thinks you have some sort of charisma charm on you to make people like you, something to do with your demon blood.”

“Eh? How is that even possible?” Neil wondered aloud. “Besides, Renee would have spotted something like that in an instant, considering she’s a paladin.”

Katelyn scoffed as she sat back in the chair. “What can I say, I love the man dearly but there’s something about that Minyard blood – they can be such assholes at times. Adorable, sexy assholes.”

“Yeah.” Neil wasn’t happy with Andrew’s heavy-handed manner of trying to protect him, but he also knew he’d do anything to keep his lover safe, that they both had their own ways of dealing with stress. Such as…. “Say, would you mind helping me out with something?”

Katelyn smiled at the question. “Sure! What is it?”

Her smile grew as Neil rattled off what he needed, which she promised to set up within the next hour. When she stood up to leave, Neil stood up as well and did his best not to flinch when she leaned over the table to give him a quick hug.

He spent the time waiting for her return studying the wards, his concentration better now that he’d talked to someone and had a plan of sorts to move forward. By the time Katelyn came back, he’d memorized two new wards and identified a few more to study later, and set the books aside with a bit of regret.

Something for another day.

“I found a lot of berries, I hope that’s all right?” Katelyn asked as she led him toward one of the kitchens.

“That’s fine.” Andrew enjoyed those as much as applies and cherries, though they weren’t in season for very long up on the mountain (that and the goats usually got to them first). They reached the kitchen which Katelyn had requested for them to use to find baskets of blackberries on one of the tables, as well as one of the ovens available.

One of the cooks, a middle-aged woman named Eryn, came over to help Neil find everything he’d need to make the blackberry tarts for Andrew.  Katelyn stayed, at first to keep him company and then to help roll out the dough and shape it into the tarts, a cheerful presence who talked about her childhood and Aaron’s fumbling attempts to court her, and laughed when Neil recounted a few stories about the knights who thought they could take on a dragon and ended up dumped in a lake for their troubles.

The tarts appeared fine when they came out of the oven; Neil put most of them in a basket to take to the room he shared with Andrew. “Good luck,” Katelyn wished him as she wrapped up a couple to take with her as she went off to deal with her own Minyard twin.

“You too.”

He sighed at the sight of the newly singed tapestries and sooty walls on the way and wondered yet again why Wymack put up with the two of them (Wymack and the castle’s cleaning staff), and hesitated for a few seconds outside of the room before he squared his shoulders then opened the door.

Andrew was sprawled out on the bed, his gaze fixed on the ceiling and hands crossed over his belly. Despite his stillness, there was a golden cast to his eyes and a strong pulse of his magic in the room, a sign that the dragon was restless. Most people would probably turn around and leave, would be unnerved by the powerful sense of magic and the strong scent of smoke, but Neil felt something inside of him relax, felt a sense of safety and security.

The anger and hurt from earlier were forgotten and forgiven, and while he missed the quiet of the mountain fortress, his true home was with _Andrew_.

He set the basket of tarts on the small desk then sat down in the chair so he could remove his boots and belt, grateful to be away from people for the day. It was quiet in the room as he set aside the belt, then the small knives he used for defense and various tasks.

About to go into the small bathing room to wash off before bed, he was startled when Andrew finally spoke up. “Blackberries?”

“Yes, blackberry tarts.” He lifted the cloth covering the still-warm pastries. “I made them for you.”

Andrew pushed up on his elbows to stare at Neil, the gold still in his eyes. “ _You_ made them. For me.”

“Yes, with Katelyn’s help.” He smiled at his husband. “We’ve spent the last few hours getting to know each other, bonding over how annoying you and Aaron can be at times. It’s been interesting.”

Andrew continued to stare at him for several seconds. “How much ground up stone fruit is in there?”

“Surprisingly, none,” Neil said as he continued to smile. “No poison, I figured that’s been a bit overdone lately. No curses or drugs, just your usual overabundance of sugar.”

Andrew sat up all the way. “We fight and you make me blackberry tarts.” He sounded rather dubious of the concept.

Neil sighed as he ran his fingers through his hair. “Was I mad at you? Yes. Do I think what you said crossed a line? Yes. Do I think you meant it? No, or else you’d have lost some skin at the least. Give me some credit for realizing that you’re unhappy over what’s happened recently and don’t want something like it to occur again.” He placed a hand over the basket in a clear warning. “However, don’t treat me like a child, dammit.”

The gold in Andrew’s eyes flared for a moment before it faded away. “I… the beast wants to lock you away where no one can touch you or even see you, where you’re safe and secure like a fucking pile of gold. _I_ want to make sure that Riko and your bastard father can’t ever harm you again. It’s a bit difficult, dealing with that.”

Neil got up to go sit on the bed, and smiled when Andrew slowly pulled him onto his lap. “We’ll keep working with Betsy to figure out some charms and spells to warn us when they’re trying to curse us and stuff, okay? I was looking into new wards today. And we’ll make things official soon.”

Andrew’s arms tightened around him. “Maybe we can have Renee sneak a priest in here.”

“Maybe.” All Neil cared about was that the vows were said and it was done; he never thought he’d be married, especially to someone who mattered so much to him, but now that he had someone like Andrew in his life he never wanted to let him go. “The sooner the better.” Before something went wrong or Nicky tried for that damn triple wedding.

“Agreed.” Andrew nudged at his chin before asking ‘yes’, to which Neil agreed before being kissed with a passion which made him moan in delight. 

His fingers splayed over Andrew’s hard biceps, Neil clenched them in the soft material of his husband’s black tunic and was about to pull away to ask if he could remove it when he found himself dumped onto the bed. Shocked by the sudden action and more than a little disgruntled to find Andrew walking away, he watched as the bastard stalked over to the desk – to the basket of blackberry tarts. “ _Really_?”

Andrew merely blinked at him as he reached into the basket to grab one of the pastries then bit into it. “Hmm, not bad. Might be worth the poisoning.”

“I’ll remember that for the next batch,” Neil snapped as he draped an arm over his eyes, once more convinced that the gods hated him.

Katelyn was so right about Minyards.

*******

 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments and kudos are appreciated!


End file.
